Saturday, January 29, 2011

Washington University claims that the goals it has are intended to provide your students (in exchange for $50,000 or so per year) the ability,

to judge ourselves by the most demanding standards;

to attract people of great ability from all types of backgrounds;

to encourage faculty and students to be bold, independent and creative thinkers;

... 'bold' and 'independent'... as long as it agrees with the popular point of view, that is. WashU recently had Green Star Czar Van Jones speak on campus, at the invitation of the Student Union (with reportedly a fairly hefty $20k fee (initially)) to hear Jones' words of wisdom, such as,

"Would you be willing to take your life, write on a card, throw it in a big pot with everybody else, reach in at random and pull out another life with total confidence"

That's Jones view of not just a measure of societies affluence, but an actual ideal goal; to live a life as undifferentiated and as lacking in individual meaning and value as anyone else (what our Founders would have called a "A leveling spirit" (and then spat)) - that's the Green Star Czar's view of things... spreading not only the wealth around, but of cutting all the poppies down to one uniform size.

Somewhat less than curious, is the fact that Bristol Palin was invited to speak by the student union as part of 'Student Sexual Responsibility Week' (I know, really? But it is only one week out of the year. Phew, right?! And besides, it's balanced by faculty advice on Miss Lewinski's speciality (no word on whether or not that qualifies as new Green Jobs )) and offer a conservative point of view on a panel (with reportedly a fairly hefty $20k fee) to hear about the folly of thinking there were no consequences to pre-marital sex, you know, being 'penalized with a baby', single parenthood, you know, non-fun stuff.

A cautionary tale, to be sure, and I don't know enough about Miss Palin to say whether or not she has anything to say that'd be worth listening to, but for some reason the fact that she might be there saying it, almost immediately stirred up a firestorm of fury and outrage, raising concerns about the security and safety not only of Palin, but students as well. There was also much outrage from students, faculty and so forth, over the exorbitant fee involved. (See Gateway Pundit and Poed Patriot for the details).

"A "No thanks, Bristol" Facebook petition against the appearance was started by College Democrats shortly after the plan was announced Wednesday and hundreds of students signed it Thursday. Others expressed displeasure during a packed meeting on the St. Louis campus"

Hmmm... do the differing receptions of Jones, vs Palin, strike you as being particularly fair and balanced? Do they strike you as evidence of promoting 'bold, independent and creative thinking' in their students, or of a diversity of views?

There were two bills: Jones billed $20,000, Palin billed $20,000, but only one firestorm over them... hmmm... suspicious? I was, but apparently there's no reason to be, the Student Union reports that:

"“His honorarium for the Assembly Series actually cost $20,000,” Klagsbrun said. “The speech was only $5,000 because we were able to call in a personal favor.”"

That's nice.

Now, being that WashU is a 'private' university, and it being the decision of the Student Union who to invite, and what out of state events to fund a delegation to (they reportedly chose to pay for 165 kids to go to the "Return to Sanity" rally in D.C), that's their decision to make.

Sad, sick even, but it is their right to do what their students want them to do.

However... given that the basic premise of the University is to broaden a students outlook and perspective, make them more reasonably tolerant of other points of view, even (supposedly) encourage interest in seeking out other points of view by, you'll remember, making an effort to "encourage faculty and students to be bold, independent and creative thinkers"... isn't this a sign that they are failing in both their intent, and follow through?

These fiery outbursts over Free Speech being used for an opposing point of view, is not an uncommon situation on college campuses, or even a localized event, do you think it might have some ramifications for our society?

It was pointed out to me by a shadowy anonymous source that:

"The state Bar Associations (essentially professional unions that are far scarier than SEIU) require Continuing Legal Education (CLEs) to maintain a legal license. The Van Jones speech counted as 1 CLE credit in the state of Missouri, despite the fact that there was nothing "legal" in the Van Jones speech."

Ah. Well, might there be some ramifications from a Marxist's views being considered worthy of credit, in our lawyers continuance of their legal education? The Student Newspaper notes that:

"Jones was listed among Time’s 100 Most Influential People in 2009 and is a distinguished visiting fellow at Princeton’s Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs. He is a senior policy adviser at Green For All, the non-governmental organization he established in 2007. He was appointed special advisor for green jobs in the Obama administration in early 2009, before his previous political ties entangled him in controversy and forced his resignation."

'Previous political ties'... yeah... just your average communist party member, and avowed marxist promoter of cop killers - those who uphold the law - just another case of building bridges between students and communists and democrats, nosiree, nothing to see here, just move along please.

What again is the educational profile of this communist friendly, green jobs promoting university with a concern for the little people?

"The university has nearly 14,000 students and is among the Top 10 most expensive in the country, with costs of over $50,000 a year per student."

Yeah... $50k a year, instilling students with a fondness for phrases like "Workers of the world unite", and against those considered representative of an opposing point of view. Could there be a problem there? Does it seem reasonable that the ideas of Marx, and Che, and Jones, of 'toss your life into a pot', are being made popular, on a campus that's paid $50,000 per year for the education of their students? Does it seem reasonable that the students thinking of such things as being popular, are likely to have any real comprehension of what those phrases mean, intellectually, or occupationally? Or even to have given consideration to the consequences in death and destruction which the popularity of such phrases, visited upon Russia, China, Cambodia...?

Parents send their kids to colleges like this to train their kids to sharpen their reasoning faculties and to learn a profession (two things which shouldn’t be thought equivalent, but that's another story), and yet their children are being indoctrinated with the most virulent one sided, strident, unreasoning sets of views, which are avowedly out to eliminate all professions and all possibility of any individual getting ahead in life ('toss your life in a jar and pull out another' remember?).

We're told we should accept these thug's denouncing of conservative views... and apparently we do.

And that's considered reasonable? And parents send their kids here... expecting what? And from Conservatives, why no outrage? Why are so very few voices being raised about how a point of view, easily an unpopular point of view, being trampled and forced off the stage, why is THAT not decried and protested? Why aren't YOU making noise about this? Yet we are going to allow these thugs of the left to go about their bully-boy ways of intimidating any speech they don't approve of into silence?

Freedom of Speech or freedom from speech?
It's tempting to ask what our problem is. Why are we being so 'reasonable' that we politely wait our turn for admittance to the gulag which must be waiting for us at the ultimate end of this queue?

But don't let it fool you, this isn't a problem of conservatives being too reasonable - the fact is that we are being anything but reasonable. That's our problem, it's the fact that we've accepted this passionless Mr. Spock form of logic chopping in place of reason, something that says when unreasoning and even anti-reasoning savages attempt to shut you up, that you should give them the credit for being 'just another valid point of view'.

"This is a Video that explains, in the Communists own words, how they use a Crisis to manipulate people's feelings ( of peace activists and the unemployed) in order to indoctrinate them into Marxism (Blame the Capitalist System for everything). All the While working with Unions, Churches, and organizations, like Jobs with Justice, to push forward their agenda."

To stand by and listen to that, is not in any way being 'reasonable', but is in fact jettisoning reason, as well as any informed view of a hierarchy of principles, out the window. Putting your head calmly into the mouth of a lion is not a demonstration of being reasonable, cool, calm and collected - it's a death wish. We are allowing ourselves to be distracted into focusing on lesser rules of civility and appropriateness, at the expense of our vital interests and values, distracted into behaving as if we are facing a reasonable opponent, while missing the higher and more vital issues involved.

Civility is indeed a necessary component of civilization, but it assumes a reasonable expectation of receiving the same from your fellow and opponent. When your opponent's entire ideas and tactics are based upon eliminating your point of view, and your right to speak it, civility must take a back seat, if you wish it to have any prominence in society ever again. No, that doesn't mean violence, that means that you cease turning polite and contrite ears to these people; it is time that we call them out for supporting the ideas which are suited only to thugs, murderers and tyrants.

Our valued higher principles, such as 'life, liberty and pursuit of happiness', the exercise of Reason, a nation of Laws, not of men, these are all under belligerent assault, and it is no longer being done surreptitiously At the very least, it seems as if views once considered those of our deepest enemies, are being given a friendly ear amongst those considered to be our future leaders. Isn't it reasonable to be concerned about that?

And how do they somehow manage to not be publicly and angrily rebuffed and denounced by the Democrat party for even suggesting that a political party devoted to the Constitution of the United States and the free market (right?), should be thought of as being chummy with those committed to the overthrow of the Constitution of the United States, people who are purveyors of communism, the greatest cause of human misery, destruction and death in all of history?

Gee, I wonder, where it is that they find their members, where do they find people sympathetic to the views of the State controlling the lives of it's people 'for their own good'?

There is a war going on, an intellectual war upon the principles of freedom and Reason itself, by avowedly anti-Reason, anti-Western savages.

The reason why Reason has been attacked and undercut in our schools, is that Reason isn't in any way weak... Reason not only developed the atomic bomb, but dropped it. Twice. For thousands of years Reason has made possible a range of incredible feats, everything from enabling small numbers of determined men to destroy vastly larger ones, as Alexander the Great defeated the Persians 2,500 years ago and the U.S. Military when obliterating a million man army just a few years ago, and both with only a handful of losses, to actually sending men to the moon - or the most astounding feat of them all for Reason - the U. S. Constitution which made it possible for men to live in freedom and prosperity for over two centuries.

But we aren't facing an enemy who fights with anything as clean as an atomic bomb, or even as civilized as suicide bombers. Our enemy is even lower than these, attacking us in our very hearts, souls and minds, eating at our very ability to know who we are, hollowing us out from within our own minds, and we are it's greatest weapon, sending our children to these 'schools' of self destruction, for $50,000 dollars and more per year.

We are paying for the privilege of being denounced and destroyed. There is nothing reasonable in that at all. Merely compliant.

Is Winning Everything?
Anything less than winning IS unacceptable. But winning isn't everything. Mistaking an opponents thinking and aping of our values ('free speech!' isn't free when it's used as cover for force), that IS a deadly mistake, but even so, winning is not everything, and the proper response is not to respond with force, or to begin seeking to win at any cost - that would be losing to our enemies 'values'.

However, that does not mean that we be quiet, civil and polite, except as they might further our cause, that of a reasoning, moral, law abiding society. Last year I had an animal rights activist attempt to shout over me in a 'discussion', fully expecting me to quietly and politely yield to her stream of assertions.

Screw that. I demonstrated how ridiculously loud I can be. I won't be shut up by those expecting to use my civility against me, those who have no civility for me or those in attendance, and I won't sit down if you try and roll over me. And none of us ever should. I suspect that the old saw "Don't talk of religion and politics in public" was started by proregressives who wanted to be able to subvert religion and politics without interference.

Screw that.

Being Reasonable certainly doesn't mean yielding and stepping aside for the barbarians within the gates of academe to pour out upon us. We must fight ideas with ideas. Brutally, and without a shred of political correctness involved. Use raw, unadorned truth, when someone claims to be 'for the little person', remind them that in the last century, the ideas in their minds have slaughtered 'little people' by the tens of millions around the world. When they claim to be for free speech, remind them that their view of 'free speech for me but not for thee' are the same vile view of 'freedoms' practiced by Stalin, Mao and Hitler. When they speak of only wishing to offer health care, remind them that what they intend will mean enslaving an entire nation, and dooming coming generations to bureaucratic death panels and economic destruction.

Winning is important, it is extremely important, but it is more important to win because it is the right and reasonable thing to do, Win because it is the only way to preserve the Western way of life, freedom, and the liberty to live your own life, without permission from some worthless bureaucrat to breath or eat as you wish. Winning for the right Reasons is a vital focus to retain, and prudence says that when a potential murderer demands to be allowed to demand your death, screw the niceties, take away the only weapon they have - your polite acceptance of their 'right' to demand it.

Keep in mind that these punks who shut down Palin from speaking at their conference, did far more than stop one person from speaking, they shouted down the conservative voice from being heard on the same terms as their pro-regressive leftist views, which they desired to go unchallenged; they shut down the very principle of Free Speech altogether, and they did this on a college campus, where Reason is supposed to hold supreme, and liberty is supposed to flourish.

They attacked the very heart and soul of America... and our response is supposed to be 'reasonable'?

Screw that!

When these little Che wannabee's demand that you treat them with respect for their ideas, then you should firmly, even loudly, identify what they are saying as nothing less than an apology for evil, and rationalizing brutality and murder. Stop worrying about offending your Sister-In-Law, and start considering the evil you are allowing to fester unchallenged in her mind... and to be spread to others.

Many people ask what could be wrong with that? Sounds like nice and neighborly things to do, don't they? Why shouldn’t Govt be empowered to help? Why is govt action worse than that of individual choices and the free market?

One word: Power. Govt has it, and it has it by taking it from you. Taking from you your personal power and freedom to make your own choice, as well as the freedom of anyone else to make their own choices.

But in light of all of our new emphasis on using nicey-nice words, I'd like to make a proposal, lets stop calling the leaders of the opposition mean names, and stop suspecting them of nefarious intentions. Maybe we could do so with just a bit more effort than the Dem's recent efforts. But aside from that tweak, I don't say this lightly. If you hide from reality in any way, you invite in falsehood and endanger yourself and all you value.

The vast majority of those looking to improve our world through the govt are not intending to harm you or take your freedoms, they are sincerely trying to help you... and that should inspire far more fear than a simple villain out to do harm. They seek to do good, they feel in their hearts that they are doing what they can to help you, and feel morally empowered in doing so... with your best interests in mind... it's the sort of self-righteousness that can prompt someone to say "But we have to pass the bill so that you can find out what is in it", and "I don't worry about the constitution", they are simply intending to do for you what you don't have the sense to do for yourself.

That's all.

There is nothing more dangerous than someone having power over you in order to do good for you. They are not restrained by the Constitution, they are not restrained by law (though they expect you to be restrained by those laws they favor), they are not restrained by your choice to go another way, to try a different solution - or none at all - they feel that your choices are misguided, shortsighted, wrong. And because they know what's best for you, they are going to 'prevent' you from such harmful behavior - for your own good.

They feel they are in the 'right'.

But what is that right? What does it rest upon? This is the question which the proponents of the Ideas of Force, are peculiarly weak willed in examining.

I’ve had a couple discussions lately, some on The Federalist Papers facebook site, some on mine, and some by email or in person, that just cause the head to swirl in disbelief. In response to my pointing out that no one has a right to force others to give them what they feel they are entitled to, one responded:

“Where’s this “use of force” I’m advocating? “Force” means an object acting against the will of a subject. In a democratic system such as ours, the public will is defined as the preferences of a majority. Force means a minority acting against the will of a majority (simple or super).”

Despite being college educated (or rather, because of it), this person actually stated, and not as an off the cuff typo, but something often repeated, that "Force means a minority acting against the will of a majority (simple or super)", the concept of a tyranny of a majority apparently never crossing his mind. Sooo... what 'Democracy' decides is good, is good? I know what college he went to - a modern one. And it is a notion that is held by many today, the counter arguments to it, the Force of Ideas hinted at in the quotes in the sidebar of this post, are simply not being taught.

So let's have a quick look, I assure you it is exceedingly important. By these all too common leftist Ideas of Force, 'Democracy' simply serves the will of the majority of the people, and what the majority of the people choose is what is right... which was the same one used by the Athenian people, when they expressed their preference to put Socrates to death for expressing his ideas... does that mean they were not advocating Force? Conversely, does that mean that Socrates’ apology was advocating the use of force against the majority by his desire to be left free to continue his questioning of them?

You might look to the left's condemnation of conservative speech for a clue to their answer to that.

Now most leftist's will balk at that, and say “We’re not talking about putting someone to death here!”, but based upon their argument, it does not matter what the issue is, it is only by an argument whose standard is rooted in Natural Law, in peoples’ self-evident Natural Right to ‘life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness’ that anyone could possibly have any disagreement with the Athenians preference to put Socrates to death for his public philosophizing... or to imprison people for wishing to handle their own healthcare. A 'morality' or 'standard' that is based upon the power of the majority to do what it wishes, contains nothing that will prevent, or even discourage, it from doing what it has the power to do. The inevitable consequences of unleashing such powers, will be the formation of things such as the much derided 'Death Panels', but Sarah Palin's apt term has stubbornly resurfaced again, which Reboot congress is shocked, shocked I say and "I'm still shocked" to say that the reality of death panels

are noted in an op-ed in the Boston Globe:"

"But... Palin is right. Death panels are an inevitable consequence of socialized medicine. The law of scarcity demands them."

But more accurately, the law of unrestrained power demands that the choices of individuals will be forced aside. When the Ends justify the Means, and are allowed unrestrained power to accomplish their goals, then the Ends will not blink at the means used to accomplish them. Force, raw and brutal, is the inevitable result of dispensing with the responsibility of living and governing outside of a constitution which upholds respect for Individual Rights, as understood through Natural Law.

Here's another example from Dana Loesch at Big Journalism, of what such ideas lead to, even from those who decry the use of words such as 'Crosshairs"... from the other side of the aisle, that is,

"“I have considerable respect for nonviolence but I don’t treat it as inevitably a necessary rule …
“It’s partly a problem almost strategy and propaganda, it’s a violent country, it’s a violent government, it’s killing people, and they’re going to call us violent if we break a window, but they will do that. Unless you have good reason for breaking the window, probably you shouldn’t do that, unless it’s,m you know, a big part of your strategy.”"

Francis Fox Piven, who is now claiming 'little old widow' status, would like everyone to not notice that she has publicly, and consistently over the course of decades, directly called for violent revolution, for destroying property... as long as it's in support of a good thing.

In other words, if you don't respect Natural Law & Property Rights and abide by laws which uphold them, then you are left with no standard but your personal desires and the power to impose them on others, and there is nothing you will not condone if it serves your purposes as a "a big part of your strategy".

The fact that Power is used with the intention to 'do good', changes nothing for the better or for the good. It ensures that the choices of individuals will not be respected, and that ultimately ends, time and time again, in death and destruction. For those who point to Europe's "Social Democracies" and say "It's working there!", well, have you heard the joke about the optimist plunging from the top of the skyscraper? He's heard to say as he plumets by each floor "So far so good!" - ultimately, that doesn't end so well.

In a comment to my last post by someone who wants the Ideas of Force to prevail, was annoyed that I'd noted it's modern source, Marxism, as being behind Political Correctness, better termed 'Cultural Marxism', he wished to paint it as being simply a benign system for doing good unto our fellow man (you), as if that’s just swell nice stuff, purely well intentioned ideas which we should all be able to get behind.

Well no, sorry, these ideas are fundamentally no different than thugs mugging you in the street, the fact that they use words and ideas rather than clubs, knives or guns (at the moment) is only a measure of their current proregress. I absolutely do not grant any civility to such ideas. I do, of course, grant civility to people who have unwittingly accepted the PC PR boilerplate assertions about how all Marxism really means is just a desire for sunshine and lollipops, but that’s granted (temporarily) to people, not their ideas… their ideas I put in the crosshairs of as destructive a philosophical bullet as I can find - and, IMHO, those people lose their immunity to such condemnation, as their familiarity with their own ideas increases.

What proponents of 'Democracy', like my commentator, and others proposing full popular vote in all elections and even on legislation, like to say,

“I am for majority rule on ALL issues: a supermajority on a certain things (e.g. civil liberties); a simple majority on everything else.”

They want majority rules on all issues. Period. See if you can find the wiggle room between such ideas of Democracy, and Europes 'Social Democracy, and the fact that only one political system in the history of the world, has led to the massive death tolls, 100 to 150 million lives, ‘achieved’ by the ideas of Marxism and Communism. The fact is that they are a direct result of what Marx summarized all of his ideas as being (ideas which fully followed from Rousseau’s ideas, btw), Chapter Two of his Communist Manifesto:

"In this sense, the theory of the Communists may be summed up in the single sentence: Abolition of private property. "

Those who've followed more than a few of my posts, know the annoying regularity with which I repeat that ALL political support for our Individual Rights is based upon a respect for Property Rights, and that dispensing with Property Rights inevitably dispenses with all Rights and all liberty and is, in fact, Anti American. This is why. You may not like that or agree that that is what you are after, you might think it unfair of me to point the fact out that hundreds of millions of lives have been lost or destroyed due to your ideas, however that IS what your ideas are based upon, and what THEY (the ideas you follow) are after.

In the same chapter, Marx lays out his 10 point plan for achieving his ideal... see if anything here seems familiar to you today:

"These measures will, of course, be different in different countries.
Nevertheless, in most advanced countries, the following will be pretty generally applicable.

Abolition of property in land and application of all rents of land to public purposes.

A heavy progressive or graduated income tax.

Abolition of all rights of inheritance.

Confiscation of the property of all emigrants and rebels.

Centralisation of credit in the hands of the state, by means of a national bank with State capital and an exclusive monopoly.

Centralisation of the means of communication and transport in the hands of the State.

Extension of factories and instruments of production owned by the State; the bringing into cultivation of waste-lands, and the improvement of the soil generally in accordance with a common plan.

Equal liability of all to work. Establishment of industrial armies, especially for agriculture.

Combination of agriculture with manufacturing industries; gradual abolition of all the distinction between town and country by a more equable distribution of the populace over the country.

Free education for all children in public schools. Abolition of children’s factory labour in its present form. Combination of education with industrial production, &c, &c."

You can claim all you want that you don't intend death and destruction; you just want to make things more fair. I'll grant you that. I'll even (with much trepidation) grant you that maybe Marx didn't want that either, or Lenin, or Stalin, or Mao or Pol Pot, etc, I would not be surprised at all to learn that they all only wanted to make things more fair for the average person. But fewer things are more true than the truism that the road to hell is paved with good intentions.

You may not intend to destroy America by your policies – but your intentions really don’t matter. You may not intend to hurt yourself when jumping off of a cliff, but the fact is that the principle of gravity doesn't care about your good intentions; certain results follow from certain actions because of the basic principles and laws which they have no choice but to adhere to. Chief among political and social principles is that if you diminish, disregard or discard a lawful respect of Property Rights, destruction and death will eventually follow. It matters not one whit whether or not the majority or even a super majority of people agree to it. What goes up, must come down, and when the idea goes up that the foundation of Property Rights are to be removed from the basis of that civilization, what will come down is that civilization.

Your intentions to the contrary, you can only take the property of another which you have no right to, through the use of force, real or implied. You cannot forbid the preferred actions of another, without the use of force, real or implied. You cannot demand that a businessmen not compete to the best of his ability, without the use of force, real or implied. You cannot mandate that I, and everyone else in this nation, ‘participate’ in Govt’s health control plan, without the use of force, real or implied.

Intellectual Warfare
You cannot fight ideas and principles with legislation alone. At best, you can temporarily thwart or slow the progress of your good intentioned enemies with legislation. They have not made their successes through legislation, but through mis-education. They've won over the 'hearts and minds' of large swaths of America, primarily the college educated, or uneducated, but leaving few who are not at least touched with sympathy for these anti-American views.

The battleground of an intellectual war, is in the minds of those we oppose, and the proper tanks, rifles and bullets are principles, concepts and words - the left knows now, and always has known this. With that in mind, we must remember that 'winning' a negotiation over something like lower taxes, which concedes that Govt has the right to tax us in order to force us to comply with its 'doing good' to us, is no victory at all.

Conservatives repeatedly make the mistake of abandoning the field of battle to the left, with the ludicrous idea that they've 'won'. For example, they will often say something true, such as "Entitlements are wrong!", but then unknowingly capitulate when the left replies with 'Our Entitlements at $N trillion dollars would be very affordable if we cut defense!". The left knows that the conservatives response will be to pragmatically (taking action without reference to principles) begin bargaining over the details of percentages of the budget for this and that to be cut here and there. What the conservative doesn't see is that this is nearly complete victory for the left in every way but the speed of their desired proregress.

Pssst! Conservatives! Hey, yes I'm talking to you, 'when you discard Principles, you discard the only thing you have that are worth conserving, your principles!'.

We must realize that when engaging in such negotiations without making your position clear, we’ve conceded the argument and all moral authority to the left.

The State of the Union today is one based on the Ideas of Force - A nation not of laws, but of men
No doubt President Obama will attempt to portray his Ideas of Force in his State of the Union Address, as if they had the Force of Ideas, but the fact is that, legislatively, we already have conceded our constitutional principles as Americans.

That is indisputable. The Constitution stands today, in word only - look to your, and your neighbors understanding of it, for proof. But look at this quote from John Adams

John Adams, Novanglus essays (1774 - 1775)
“ Obsta principiis, nip the shoots of arbitrary power in the bud, is the only maxim which can ever preserve the liberties of any people. When the people give way, their deceivers, betrayers, and destroyers press upon them so fast, that there is no resisting afterwards. The nature of the encroachment upon the American constitution is such, as to grow every day more and more encroaching. Like a cancer, it eats faster and faster every hour. The revenue creates pensioners, and the pensioners urge for more revenue. The people grow less steady, spirited, and virtuous, the seekers more numerous and more corrupt, and every day increases the circles of their dependents and expectants, until virtue, integrity, public spirit, simplicity, and frugality, become the objects of ridicule and scorn, and vanity, luxury, foppery, selfishness, meanness, and downright venality swallow up the whole society..”

we have been in this situation before, and we recovered our Rights and Liberty then, and we can do so again, now. While the last time required real warfare, today's battle can and will be won peacefully on the battlefield of ideas alone - if we - you and your neighbor - stand up for, and commit to them.

We have everything our Founding Fathers lacked - we have our own nation, our own government, we have the incredible power of our Constitution - we only have to remember that its power resides in us - we are now in a situaiton where we realize that we have let slip its meaning and allowed our representatives to forget it and us, but realizing that, we can, and must, work hard to get from where we are, back to a position where our constitutional principles are again seen as the law of the land, and to do that we must, step by painful step, politically, legally, educationally and properly, reverse the situation we find ourselves in.

But it is only a ‘good start’, not a success. And it is only a good start if we refuse to ignore that their good intentions are fundamentally opposed to the American understanding of liberty. If you can't quite imagine regarding your convincing a poisoner to cut the amount of arsenic he puts in your food, from a dose that’ll kill you in a month, to a dose that’ll kill you in a year… as being a victory… then don't fool yourself about reducing taxes and spending either. Nevertheless, from the position we find ourselves in, it is also hard not to call such measures, improvements, and ones that should be encouraged - just don't forget the fact that our ultimate goal is to get the poisoner out of the kitchen and far from being able to do further harm, ASAP. As long as We The People don’t mistake this for being anything other than a good start, and don’t let them forget that we haven’t forgotten it, well then, I think we oughta give those Senators and Representatives who are proposing such cuts, an 'atta boy'.

"Atta Boy!"

Now get back to work, Repeal, Replace, Restore, but most importantly of all, stand up for your principles, and proclaim them!

Note: To learn where the Founding Fathers got their ideas for sound government and how a return to these ideas can solve our nation’s problems today. This DVD-based study on the book "The Five Thousand Year Leap" will be offered on Wednesday evenings beginning February 9. This study will cover the “Twenty-Eight Principles of Liberty--Ideas that Changed the World.” You can pay for and pick up your book ($6) on February 9.

To register or for more information, contact Van at: Blogodidact@gmail.com.

Monday, January 10, 2011

Within moments of the first news bulletin about the shooting in Arizona Rep. Giffords, I pulled up Google News and clicked the first news link which was to UK's Telegraph. Well before it was even known who all was shot and how seriously or who the shooter was, they had already launched into the 'Target' meme, targeting Sarah Palin and Conservatives:

"Miss Giffords had been named in March as a political campaign target for conservatives in November’s elections by former Alaska governor Sarah Palin for her strong support for the health reforms of President Barack Obama.

Mrs Palin had published a “target map” on her website using images of gun sights to identify 20 House Democrats, including Miss Giffords, for backing the new health care law."

In other words, without a second thought (or perhaps even a first), the assumption was made that if a Democrat Rep. was shot, it MUST be for political reasons, those reasons must be partisan reasons, and obviously it must be Right Wingers in general, and Constitutionalist Tea Partiers in particular, which would be responsible. Responsible for stirring up 'unrest', responsible for 'targetting' the left, and responsible for pulling the trigger.

I've little interest in whatever else they might have to say on the subject (But if you do, here's a darned good starting point (T/W Gagdad Bob):here, here, here, and here) or about political conspiracies ready to be sprung, this article is from the U.K. - Philosophy has no need for political conspiracies, it moves minds in like directions far better than any Machiavellian conspirator dreamt up by the very best thriller writer could possibly conceive of - that is the key we should be paying attention to, because the results have the potential to be far worse than mere conspiracies could ever conspire to.

These knee jerk assumptions that have been made about Sarah Palin and Conservatives, are the result of Political Correctness (more properly known as Cultural Marxism), they are the anti-thesis to thought - operating from positions, rather than conceptions - and are seriously dangerous when allowed entry into the political process, let alone the legislative process, where it becomes a danger to freedom and liberty itself.

This morning I'm hearing about lawmakers proposing a measure to ban 'politically sensitive' terms, or angry speech directed towards lawmakers, words like 'Target' are to be verbotten in public speech. That should chill you to the bone, no matter your political persuasion.

But it shouldn't surprise you. Not in the least. Just last week, we heard about a Professor from Auburn University, proposing a new version of Mark Twain's classic "Huckleberry Finn" - minus just a few words.

Professor Gribben wants a sanitized version "Huckleberry Finn" so that schools could read a less offensive version of Twain's tale. Forget the fact that Twain deliberately wrote the tale in as offensive a manner as possible in order to call people's attention to what really transpired, and how shallow and foolish the bigotry behind it was (towards race and dialect), how about having a look at the intent of the Professor? :

"Twain scholar Alan Gribben and NewSouth Books plan to release a version of Huckleberry Finn, in a single volume with The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, that does away with the "n" word (as well as the "in" word, "Injun") by replacing it with the word "slave."

... In the new classroom, it's really not acceptable." Gribben became determined to offer an alternative for grade school classrooms and "general readers" that would allow them to appreciate and enjoy all the book has to offer. "For a single word to form a barrier, it seems such an unnecessary state of affairs," he said"

He wanted to see the tale told in a less offensive language. There's a few degrees of appalling to dive into there, but just right off the top... do you want a story focused on the folly of racism, to have the expressions of racism be... less offensive? How about the the idea of a crucifix being submerged in urine... not worthy of being made less offensive? Wouldn't it be less offensive to replace urine with water? How about rap lyrics? How about South Park? How about Beck, Olberman, Joe Bidden, Clair McCaskill, etc?

What do I mean? Bill Hennessy provides us with a useful list here of those on the left using 'angry words' in the news:

This is a list which the pushers of PC (or at least those addicted to it) would do well to consider, for someday the political winds will reverse and blow in the other direction... what will become of 'their' freedom, if those constitutional protections are removed in order to target 'our' freedoms today?

""You can't threaten the president with a bullseye or a crosshair," Mr. Brady, a Democrat, said, and his measure would make it a crime to do so to a member of Congress or federal employee, as well."

When congress is allowed to name some words, symbols or ideas as being offensive and legally unacceptable, and others as not, there's one thing you can be sure of: the knotty list is going to grow exponentially in size and really fast as well, at least as quickly as the Income Tax went from "Only the richest 1% of Americans will EVER be affected by this tax! Those who say otherwise are alarmists!", to applying to all Americans, some of whom are now 'graciously' exempted after the fact, due to income levels, some of whom are enabled by it to receive some of your income (which is one way of 'spreading the wealth around').

This measure, and the like minded ones lining up to follow it, will not, in any way, stop at offensive words. An attack on ideas and your Right to express them, is an attack on Rights as such, and if we allow one aspect of one Right to be taken away, then all others will follow, in a manner of speaking, 'follow' I mean - the fact is that if you infringe on one Right, all rights have been dispensed with already, it's just a matter of 'boiling the frog' slowly enough to not shock people into a realization of the fact.

For instance, right behind the attack on the words and Ideas of Mark Twain, we now have an attack on the words and ideas used in political speech, and swiftly following that we are moving from the 1st amendment to an attack on the 2nd amendment and the Right to bare arms.

""Rep. Carolyn McCarthy, D-N.Y., one of Congress’ fiercest gun control advocates, is looking to strike while the iron is hot. “My staff is working on looking at the different legislation fixes that we might be able to do and we might be able to introduce as early as tomorrow,” McCarthy told Politico Sunday. Rep. McCarthy said that she plans to meeting with House Speaker John Boehner and Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi to see “if we can work something through” this week."

And right behind that, together with some preparatory work with Net Neutrality 'enacted' for Christmas of last year, comes an attack on the right of the people to peaceably assemble, 21st century style, across the Internet:

"President Obama is putting plans in motion to give the Commerce Department authority to create an Internet ID for all Americans, a White House official told CNET.com.
White House Cybersecurity Coordinator Howard Schmidt told the website it is "the absolute perfect spot in the U.S. government" to centralize efforts toward creating an "identity ecosystem" for the Internet."

An "identity ecosystem" wow, that's American style freedom through and through, isn't it?
Or have a look at this from the same article:

"The National Strategy for Trusted Identities in Cyberspace is currently being drafted by the Obama administration and will be released by the president in a few months.

"We are not talking about a national ID card. We are not talking about a government-controlled system. What we are talking about is enhancing online security and privacy, and reducing and perhaps even eliminating the need to memorize a dozen passwords, through creation and use of more trusted digital identities," Commerce Secretary Gary Locke said at an event Friday at the Stanford Institute for Economic Policy Research, according to CNET.com.

Locke added that the Commerce Department will be setting up a national program office to work on this project."

Govt monitored, controlled, passwords for access to the Internet. Control that, and you control the one thing which made the Tea Party movement possible, the one thing which made the new Republican majority in congress possible, the right to meet each other and peaceably assemble, online first, and together at a physical locations, second. Eliminate that 'glitch' in the "identity ecosystem", and you eliminate a bunch of bureaucratic nightmares for those who want to do good to you.

Recall that with the 16th amendment passed in the 'year of doom', 1913, the income tax was adopted with a 1% tax on net personal incomes above $3,000, with a 6% surtax on incomes above $500,000. In less than 5 years the income tax was increased to 77% on income over $1,000,000. After WWI, the top marginal tax rate was 'generously' reduced to 58% in 1922 then to 25% in 1925, and finally to 24% in 1929 thanks to the administrations of Harding & Coolidge,

"The collection of any taxes which are not absolutely required, which do not beyond reasonable doubt contribute to the public welfare, is only a species of legalized larceny. Under this republic the rewards of industry belong to those who earn them. The only constitutional tax is the tax which ministers to public necessity. The property of the country belongs to the people of the country. Their title is absolute."

, but with the election of another proregressive, Hoover, by 1932 the top tax rate rose to 63% during the Great Depression and continued increasing up to 92% by 1952. From there on out, it has been the task of heartless conservatives (Left and Right, remember JFK reduced tax rates) to reduce that rate by a few points whenever possible, but always to accusations of obstructionism.

Obstructing Liberty
Obstructionism to what? In a word: Liberty. For in all the wrangling over how much shall be taken through the Income Tax and from who, the real question has been forgotten, that being 'Who has a right to their property - the person who earns it, or the Govt who wants to spend it?', and the real question behind that is, Are the source of your Rights in you, by nature of your being a human being, or in Govt, by dint of it's having assumed power over you?

If you cling to any of the denials that things will not perilously proregress from there, compare these current denials to the flat out denials that your Social Security Number would NEVER be used for identification purposes.

You get the picture? Yeah, that's right.

Connect this all, legislating away 'angry words', creating a safe 'identity ecosystem' across the Internet, and together with with Net Neutrality enabling control of the 'net itself... and ladies and gents... something wicked this way comes.

Blog:A blog (a blend of the term web log)[1] is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video.

Blogodidact: (a blend of the term blog and autodidact) Weblog of a person discussing items of interest encountered along the way of becoming self-taught while working his way through the materials and ideas of Western Civilization, beginning with Homer, to the present day. The Blogodidactic process, though technically first begun in the mid 1980's, had its first known use in August of 2006.

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About Me

In school, I was the quiet kid in the back, then I spent the '80's playing in a travelling Rock Band on the West Coast. I stopped that to get married and have a life; in the process I've passed from Sales, to Teaching, to Coding, to Parenting and learning how the world went from Gilgamesh to the Founding Father's, to the fun filled world of today.

What is a Blogodidact?

Blog:A blog (a blend of the term web log)[1] is a type of website or part of a website supposed to be updated with new content from time to time. Blogs are usually maintained by an individual with regular entries of commentary, descriptions of events, or other material such as graphics or video.

Blogodidact: (a blend of the term blog and autodidact) Weblog of a person discussing items of interest encountered along the way of becoming self-taught while working his way through the materials and ideas of Western Civilization, beginning with Homer, to the present day. The Blogodidactic process, though technically first begun in the mid 1980's, had its first known use in August of 2006.